A veteran city educator and devout Christian who prayed in her empty Brooklyn classroom claims her principal not only mocked her for her beliefs, but eventually fired her for them, too.

PS 224 assistant special-education teacher Anita Wooten-Francis, 52, claims she never hid her faith but took care not to influence kids. She worshiped in her classroom before or after students left, read the Bible on her lunch break, led other teachers in a prayer group, and played gospel music during non-instruction hours.

For 16 years she had no problem, until Principal George Andrews arrived at the Canarsie school in 2004.

He said, 'You can't be praying in my school,' " Wooten-Francis recalled. "He said I was the ringleader in praying."

Andrews even made fun of her for being devout, she claims.
He'd "constantly" tease her that "he was aware that she and other Christians were praying to have the demons removed from his spirit, but that it was not working," according to a lawsuit she filed earlier this month in Brooklyn federal court.

In one instance, he criticized the disabled woman for using the elevator and told her to take the stairs. When she protested, he allegedly said, "Why don't you just pray?" Then he laughed.

At the same time, she says, the school was going to hell in a handbasket, with school administrators charging students for bake sales "even though no charity received the proceeds," and using money from the school's Special Needs Funds to pay for lunches and parties, the suit claims.

After she complained, Wooten-Francis said she was fired on trumped-up charges accusing her of grabbing a kindergartner.

"Sometimes I will drop my Bible because my hands go numb and I have no feeling. How in the world am I going to grab a child?" she insisted, referring to nerve damage in her hands and feet from a host of medical problems.

Does anyone have a valid news site for this bit of so called news? I googled text and wingnutteryland has it everywhere as is their wont, but is there more to the story than this possibly irrelevant piece?

But aren't you winguts being a little hypocritical over someone being fired - assuming she was - doesn't capitalism require adherence to rule, and if she broke any, or wasn't liked, so what? You don't cry over Walmart's horrid treatment of employees, why cry over this? Picking and choosing your concern is rather phony.

Does anyone have a valid news site for this bit of so called news? I googled text and wingnutteryland has it everywhere as is their wont, but is there more to the story than this possibly irrelevant piece?

But aren't you winguts being a little hypocritical over someone being fired - assuming she was - doesn't capitalism require adherence to rule, and if she broke any, or wasn't liked, so what?

Click to expand...

What rule did she break? And is there a rule that states employees have to be liked?

Does anyone have a valid news site for this bit of so called news? I googled text and wingnutteryland has it everywhere as is their wont, but is there more to the story than this possibly irrelevant piece?

But aren't you winguts being a little hypocritical over someone being fired - assuming she was - doesn't capitalism require adherence to rule, and if she broke any, or wasn't liked, so what? You don't cry over Walmart's horrid treatment of employees, why cry over this? Picking and choosing your concern is rather phony.

Most schools are advised by their counsels not to respond in any way to anyone asking questions in cases of employee firings in which a pending court case exists. We will therefore not know the other side of the story until the case is tried or settled out of court, in which case, the public may never know the school's version.

There are intimations here and there that the complaintant grabbed a child, which she denies emphatically. Since the school cannot and will not say, all that is known is what the fired teacher says.

I can't tell whether someone is lying or not if I can't see their eyes. Her picture, now all over the web, shows a woman with dark glasses covering her eyes.

Charges that religion got someone fired is sad. A person falsely claiming a popular shibboleth in order to get instant revenge on someone they hate is the only thing I know that is sadder. I can't tell in this case.

A veteran city educator and devout Christian who prayed in her empty Brooklyn classroom claims her principal not only mocked her for her beliefs, but eventually fired her for them, too.

PS 224 assistant special-education teacher Anita Wooten-Francis, 52, claims she never hid her faith but took care not to influence kids. She worshiped in her classroom before or after students left, read the Bible on her lunch break, led other teachers in a prayer group, and played gospel music during non-instruction hours.

For 16 years she had no problem, until Principal George Andrews arrived at the Canarsie school in 2004.

He said, 'You can't be praying in my school,' " Wooten-Francis recalled. "He said I was the ringleader in praying."

Andrews even made fun of her for being devout, she claims.
He'd "constantly" tease her that "he was aware that she and other Christians were praying to have the demons removed from his spirit, but that it was not working," according to a lawsuit she filed earlier this month in Brooklyn federal court.

In one instance, he criticized the disabled woman for using the elevator and told her to take the stairs. When she protested, he allegedly said, "Why don't you just pray?" Then he laughed.

At the same time, she says, the school was going to hell in a handbasket, with school administrators charging students for bake sales "even though no charity received the proceeds," and using money from the school's Special Needs Funds to pay for lunches and parties, the suit claims.

After she complained, Wooten-Francis said she was fired on trumped-up charges accusing her of grabbing a kindergartner.

"Sometimes I will drop my Bible because my hands go numb and I have no feeling. How in the world am I going to grab a child?" she insisted, referring to nerve damage in her hands and feet from a host of medical problems.

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